Hell
Summary When a young girl is found nearly dead on the streets, the Special Victims Unit's only clue to the identity of her attacker is a picture of a devil she drew when asked who attacked her. As the police search for the assailant, they learn that the victim was a sex slave in Uganda, and suspect that her devil is a former member of the infamous Lord's Resistance Army. Plot A former African child refugee's throat is slashed though she survives, and SVU connects the case to two former Ugandan war criminals--one a ruthless killer, the other a sympathetic former child soldier trying to change his life. The former soldier, Elijah is initially blamed for the crime, but is revealed to be innocent while the other man, the Devil of Gulu, is the true culprit. Stabler realizes that the Devil is a man he met earlier working as a janitor and confronts and arrests him. The man is charged for attempted murder and is instead sent to The Hague to be tried by the International Criminal Court for war crimes which allow all of his victims to get justice. In the meantime, despite Elijah finally being cleared from all charges for good, his request for asylum is denied as he turned eighteen while being a child soldier and is thus legally culpable, and he will be deported back to Uganda. Cabot and Stabler try to intervene and decide to have him seek sanctuary inside his church where the feds will not come after him, but once he learns of the deportation, he takes a children's choir hostage out of desperation. Stabler and Fin try to talk him down and get him to release the children as he knows better than anyone that they are innocent. Despite doing so, Elijah has no intention of harming anyone other than himself: he'd rather commit suicide rather than go back to Uganda and believes he is beyond forgiveness from God. The priest tries to convince him that this is not so, but starts to suffer a heart attack. Stabler manages to convince Elijah to give up the gun and surrender, pointing out that the gun is not his friend as he was indoctrinated to believe. Elijah surrenders to Stabler and helps him get the priest outside for medical attention, but after seeing a crowd of reporters, he charges them and is shot down before Stabler can stop the SWAT team. Elijah dies, but tells the earlier victim who he saw as his little sister that he sacrificed himself so that people would see the horror of the child soldiers. Stabler watches a montage of images of child soldiers with the priest and the two agree to spread Elijah's story and hope someone will listen and help bring an end to the horror. Cast Main cast * Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler * Mariska Hargitay as Detective Olivia Benson * Richard Belzer as Sergeant John Munch * Ice-T as Detective Odafin Tutuola * Michaela McManus as A.D.A. Kim Greylek (credit only) * B.D. Wong as Dr. George Huang (credit only) * Tamara Tunie as M.E. Melinda Warner * Dann Florek as Captain Donald Cragen Recurring cast * Stephanie March A.D.A. Alexandra Cabot * Stephen Gregory as Dr. Kyle Beresford * Sean Cullen as I.C.E. Agent Brett Trask Guest cast * Robert Wisdom as Father Theo Burdett * Gbenga Akinnagbe as Elijah Okello * Mike Colter as Joseph Serumaga / Samuel Mbazzi * Andrew Guilarte as Rajiv * Gordon Joseph Weiss as Homeless Man * Cicely Tyson as Ondine Burdett * Julyza Commodore as Miriam Burdett * Joanna Bonaro as Doris DeNuzio * Pietro Gonzales as Felipe * Kola Ogundiran as Nathaniel References *International Criminal Court *Lord's Resistance Army *Kenya *Staten Island *Uganda Quotes (Stabler confronts Joseph Serumaga, a warlord who burned down a church with people inside) (Benson has learned that Joseph Serumaga has been handed over to the International Criminal Court) Background information and notes * It is alluded to that ADA Alex Cabot graduated from Harvard Law School. Episode scene cards Category:SVU episodes